The Catcher In The Rye: A Time for Healing
by Eric Georgiades
Summary: This is the continuation for the conclusion for the catcher in the rye Enjoy


27

After D.B. and the English babe left, I realized it was time for my appointment with Dr. Morelli. He's a psychoanalyst here. He's not the one who keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself in school in September, I can't stand that idiot, what a phony! That guy is Dr. Pendleton. Thank god I only have to meet with Pendleton once a week! Dr. Morelli is the psychoanalyst that I have to meet with everyday. He's much younger than Pendleton; I swear ole Pendleton looks like he's about a hundred years old! I'd guess that Dr. Morelli is somewhere in his thirties. He's tall and thin, the exact opposite of Pendleton who's a short, fat pig. The thing I like about Dr. Morelli is, he talks with you, not at you or down to you, do you know what I mean? And he looks at you when you're talking to him, like he's really listening and interested in what you have to say. Not like ole Pendleton who just asks stupid questions and stares at his notepad taking notes. He could be drawing flitty pictures on that notepad the whole time for all I know!

Most of the time I just lie to Pendleton and tell him whatever I think he wants to hear just so that I can get out of there quicker. He's so stupid; he doesn't know the difference between the lies and the truth anyway. What a phony, he doesn't really care about anything other than all the dough he's making pretending to listen to people.

Anyway, Dr. Morelli is different. He likes to talk about all the stuff I just finished telling you about. You know, like how I got kicked out of Pencey, Stradlater, Jane, my time in the city when I didn't want to go home and well, everything that led to me winding up here, in the nut house! I told you I was a madman! He's a nice doctor, but all these talks get me thinking about everyone and everything. I don't like the way that makes me feel. The more I talk to him the more I start to miss people, everyone. It drains me. It actually exhausts me to miss people. Once you start missing people, it attaches you to them. Then, if something happens to them you find yourself in a hospital with a broken hand from punching out windows!

Dr. Morelli usually wants to talk about Allie. We talk about what a great kid Allie was. How intelligent and good he was. I like talking about all the fun times with Allie before he died. But, lately Dr. Morelli wants to talk about Allie's death, and it's just too painful. He's told me that he believes that the trauma of Allie's death is what brought me here. And let's face it, the night I got "sick" and was brought here my parents had found me in Allie's bedroom, balling my eyes out and babbling out loud talking to Allie as though he was right in the room. I was hysterical and they thought I lost my mind!

I heard a knock on the door and in walked Dr. Morelli. He smiled the pleasant smile he always gives when he comes in for our appointment.

"Hello Holden, how are you?" Dr. Morelli asked.

"I guess I'm still nuts since I'm still here!" I told him. He laughed as he sat down. See, what I mean about him, he's like a regular guy. You can joke with him; he has a sense of humor.

"I heard your brother D.B. was here to see you. Did you have a nice visit?" he asked me.

"Yeah, its always nice to see him."

"I wanted to continue our conversation from yesterday, Holden. We were discussing grieving."

"Yeah, I remember something about the 5 stage thing," I told him.

"That's right Holden, when someone suffers a loss as great as the loss of your dear brother, Allie, you experience a very complicated emotion called grief. It's believed that there are five different stages of grief. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then finally acceptance. My colleagues and I believe that if someone does not complete these five stages of grief they won't be able to heal."

"And you think that's why I'm all screwed up, because I haven't completed all these stages of grief," I asked him.

"Yes, I do and I'm here to listen and to help you in any way that I can Holden," he told me in his calm soothing voice.

It was kind of weird having him tell me this, but I like the way he tells me how he feels and what he thinks instead of just asking me how I feel.

"Where were you when your brother died? He asked me next.

"In Maine, we were all…"

"No, I mean where were you when Allie died?" he interrupted. This made me uncomfortable, this is the kind of stuff I don't like to talk about. This is what drains me.

"Oh, I was with a girl, her name was Jane. Jane Gallagher. We were playing checkers on her front porch when we heard the ambulance siren. I had no idea that ambulance was for Allie."

"Of course you didn't, how could you have known," he assured me.

"We just kept playing and having a good time. Can you imagine that, I'm playing checkers while my brother is dying."

"You didn't know, Holden"

Then I continued, "When they came to get me and told me Allie was gone I couldn't believe it! That's when I went crazy and started smashing windows."

"It's the most painful thing a person can go through, the loss of a loved one. All these emotions you are going through are normal Holden. Finally talking about it and confronting these feelings is a step towards healing that pain. You didn't do anything wrong the day Allie died. Nothing is your fault. It was nobodies fault."

"Then why do I feel so guilty," I asked him as my eyes filled up with tears.

"Is that why you never called Jane Gallagher again? Because you felt guilty for being with her the day he died." he asked. I felt myself getting very worked up.

"I don't know. I guess so. I mean, Allie died and now he never gets to go to school again. So why should I care about going to school and getting good grades. He never gets a chance to meet or call a girl like Jane. He never gets to grow up and have a life. So why should I get to be happy and have all that when he was such a better person than me, he's the one that deserves it," I shouted

"You deserve it too Holden. You must believe me, you deserve it too!"

As I started to cry, Dr Morelli gave me a hug. Normally I would have freaked at a man hugging me. I would have thought he was a pervert or something, but not this time. For the first time in a long time I wanted to be hugged and comforted. He just kept telling me everything would be all right over and over. For the first time in a long time, I believed that maybe I would be. When he was sure I was o.k. he went to the cafeteria to get me something to eat. I laid in my bed thinking about everything that Dr. Morelli and I had talked about. I thought about Allie. Then I thought about calling Jane Gallagher again one day, but not now. I'll wait till I'm feeling better; but I think that day might be soon.


End file.
